Best Served Cold
by auberus11
Summary: After the destruction of Stryker's base at Alkalai Lake, Magneto stumbles across an unexpected survivor.


******Best Served Cold**

Magneto turns away from the newly-expanded Alkali Lake, an expression of grim satisfaction on his face. Months of helplessness have been repaid with a show of power that will resonate all the way to the marble halls of the White House, and in a far more permanent way than Stryker's little stunt with the teleporter - although that was a lovely piece of work in its own right.

The war is coming: he can feel it gathering like thunder, storm-clouds that will match even the ones that darkened his childhood. Content in his vengeance, he is about to get into the plane when Mystique holds up a hand, her head tilted to one side and her eyes gone distant.

"What is it?" Pyro asks. Magneto cuts him off with a sharp gesture. The boy subsides with a sulky expression on his face. That one will have to be taught a thing or two about obedience, and soon.

Magneto returns his attention to Mystique, raising an eyebrow as he waits for her to report.

"A noise," she says finally, "down by the edge of the water." She points one elegant hand towards the partially-submerged tree line. "I think it's a human."

"Excellent," Magneto says, allowing himself a dark smile of anticipation. All of his people - and all of Charles' - are accounted for, which means that any survivor will be one of Stryker's men. He may be content with his revenge, but that is no reason not to exact more.

"Mystique," he gestures, then after a half-moment's pause, beckons to Pyro, too. Time for the boy to learn that he's about as far from the safety of Charles' school as he can get, that he has, in fact, been transferred directly to the front lines. He needs to learn what that means, needs to learn how to focus and fine-tune the fiery rage that is currently consuming him. It is a fine art, to burn without being consumed by the flame, an art that Magneto has spent a lifetime perfecting. He has never forgotten the story of Moses and the burning bush.

Pyro and Mystique fall in behind him, flanking him, and the three of them advance through the trees to the edge of the new-risen water. Half-in, half-out of the shallows, a figure in US Army camouflage is kneeling, one hand bracing himself as he retches up more water than Magneto had thought it possible for the human body to hold. He's fairly sure that the soldier feels the same way. He motions his two associates to stillness, and waits.

After a minute or two, the soldier forces himself to his feet, his eyes going straight to where Magneto is waiting. This isn't just some nameless flunky in Stryker's colors; rather, this is the colonel's right-hand man, the sharp-eyed and impassive Sergeant Lyman.

He looks much the worse for wear: his normally impeccable uniform is not only water-soaked, but torn and bloodstained; a second, longer look reveals a neat line of bullet holes stitched across his chest and abdomen, five in all. There is blood matted on the left side of his head, too, but for all of that he moves with an ease that proves he is not seriously injured. For a long moment, he does not move, does not blink, just looks warily at Magneto and the others.

"Sergeant," Magneto says, a mockery of goodwill filling his voice, "you're still alive."

The man smiles, a thin expression that does not touch the wariness in his eyes.

"I see I'm not the only one. Is this the part where you torture me for revenge? I had rather hoped that the next step in the evolutionary ladder would be beyond all that." His voice turns nasty, razor sharp: "Still, it's nice to see that the more vicious human impulses have bred true."

Magneto is not entirely sure how to take this. This man is nothing like the one he remembers from his time in Stryker's tender care. Sergeant Lyman had always struck him as a tool, a man to aim and release like a well-trained hound, but there is nothing dog-like about the figure in front of him now. Wolf-like, maybe - there's a gleam in Lyman's hazel eyes that is distinctly feral - but whatever it was that moved this man to obedience is no longer a factor. Magneto tries to fight back the uncomfortable feeling that this might not be an entirely positive development.

"You've certainly proven yourself an expert in that field, Sergeant," he says sharply.

"You have no idea," Lyman answers, and there is a world of danger in his voice, a steel and velvet promise of death and pain. Magneto knows a great deal about dangerous men, and he knows damn well that he is looking at one now. He realizes suddenly that the man's Midwestern accent has vanished like mist in the morning, replaced by precise British syllables that add an edge of warning to his speech.

"Mystique, Pyro -- grab him. Careful of his wounds; I want him alive - but don't let him take you unawares."

Lyman laughs, then; a low, amused chuckle that raises the hairs on the back of Magneto's neck. Mystique and Pyro hesitate.

"Wounds?" Lyman asks. "What wounds?" His hands are at the buttons of his BDU jacket even as he speaks. The brown t-shirt beneath is just as bullet-torn and soaked with blood, and Lyman pulls it up to reveal a smooth, uninjured torso marked only by a few smears of drying crimson.

"You're a mutant," Magneto says in surprise.

"No," Lyman says flatly. "Stryker tested all his people for the X-gene." He tilts his head to the side; the last of the sunlight catches eerily in his eyes, backlighting them with green and gold and menace. "Besides," he says, his voice oddly contemplative, "mutants are a relatively recent development, as far as I'm concerned."

Something about his calm, flat voice and the cold, disinterested threat in his face sends a chill through Magneto. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he hasn't scared easily in more than half a century. He isn't sure what he's just stumbled upon, but he's seen enough to know that Lyman might well be as dangerous as he is, albeit in a different fashion.

"What are you, then?" He manages to sound cool, disinterested; inside, he's torn between fear and burning curiosity. Lyman smiles.

"I'm Immortal."

***

When Lyman says 'immortal', that's exactly what he means. If he is to be believed, the man Stryker belittled and underused had in fact been Alexander's strategist, Caesar's tactician, Richelieu's adviser. It's for that reason that Lyman was spared the adamantium reinforcements that had done so much damage to Wolverine's mind. When Magneto asks about it, he shrugs.

"If you're testing a bomb, you test it in the desert, not in the middle of the Sistine Chapel. The adamantium reinforcement process causes severe mental trauma, usually in the form of amnesia. Stryker wasn't about to destroy his chief strategist."

"I'd like to know why you joined him in the first place," Magneto says mildly. "Playing Judas like dear Wolverine?"

"And if I don't want to tell you?"

"Then this conversation might get a great deal less pleasant. We could try having it with you in chains."

Lyman smiles. It's a perfectly amiable expression, but it makes Magneto's blood run cold.

"If you put chains on me," he says, "I'll kill you."

"I'm afraid, Sergeant, that I'm the one holding all the cards," Magneto points out.

"That's what Stryker thought," Lyman shrugs, "and he's dead."

"_You_ didn't kill him."

Lyman laughs. It's a vicious sound.

"I made it happen. He didn't realize I'd be able to think around his mind-control serum. The holes you exploited on your way into his compound were there deliberately."

It's a preposterous story, but Lyman's eyes make it believable. What's more, when Lyman gives Magneto a long, speculative look and offers to join them, Magneto can't quite hold back an anticipatory smile.

***

_Author's Notes: I messed with the details of the movie a little bit. Thanks to lferion for beta-services. Feedback is, as always, appreciated._


End file.
